Chedworth & Burford

Way back when the year was young, my wonderful partner Nikki - ever mindful of the need to relax well and often - decided that by the time we reached the August Bank Holiday we'd be in serious need of some R&R and suggested we book two extra days hols to make it a *very* long weekend.

Owing to one of the many cock-ups with the bathroom fitting, she'd had to forfeit one of her days which meant I spent yesterday at home faffing about with some of the smaller jobs in the study while she slaved away over a hot telephone. But by dint of doing the early shift AND forgoing half her lunch break, she managed to get away at 4pm and we set off for a short break in the Cotswolds.

The first 95% of the journey was frighteningly familiar to me, it being the same as the journey to Slough or Bracknell, but when we left the M40 at Junction 11 all became calm, new and exciting.

Nikki had found a fab place for us to stay in the little village of Shipton-under-Wychwood (Cotswolds names are so Middle Ages aren't they?) - a 700-year- old hostelry known as the Shaven Crown. The Crown is a ramshackle mixture of old and new but very tastefully extended. It has a welcoming bar, attractive "beer garden" courtyard with fountain and a stone-flagged lobby with a most impressive staircase. The hotel "reception" is the small desk underneath the stairs and the part of the porter's bell is played by the shop bell hanging off the back of the lobby door.

We arrived shortly after 6.30pm and after dodging the low ceilings, wrestling with the room key that doesn't quite fit the door and dumping our bags, repaired to the beer garden for a bar meal and a couple of pints.

This morning our first stop was to be the roman villa at Chedworth. Originally discovered and excavated by the Victorians, this was a bit of a curate's egg.

Although they had taken great pains to preserve the exposed walls by adding twee little caps of brick and tile, which resulted in a very well preserved site, they had laboured without the advantages of modern archaeological technique, so no notes were made as they dug down through the layers of evidence, and much that would have been useful in determining exactly who lived there, what they did, when they did it, etc, was discarded in the digging process.

Nevertheless the site is impressive. The mosaics on the bath house floor are almost completely intact, and the hypocaust-heated rooms with their brick flues and raised stone floors are in marvellous condition for a site estimated to have been built around 4 A.D.

Owned by the National Trust, this is probably the last Trust property we will visit on our family membership which we decided last year to let lapse. It's very nice to be able to walk up to the ticket office, flash a membership card and gain free entry, but at over £60 a year you need to be visiting more than five times a year to make it worthwhile - something we never did. So with an expiry date of 31 August on our cards, it felt good to finally get some benefit from it.

After a "full Cotswold" breakfast at the hotel this morning (as far as I could tell the only variance from a "full English" was the lack of baked beans) neither of us felt much like lunch, but Nikki did spot an intriguing sign for a pub set on the banks of the Windrush. We took a detour and found a delightful pub - The Fox Inn - in the village of Great Barrington. The Windrush proved to be a small river, but well-named (especially after recent floods) as it was still in full flow. A little muddy as the flood waters drained off the fields, but gurgling happily along in the late August sun, which was nevertheless still hot enough to make our swift halves all the more welcome.

On the way to Chedworth we'd driven through Burford - a charming Cotswold village with a wide range of antique, art and craft shops. We decided to stop off here and see what it had to offer. What we found was quite surprising - a huge range of gift possibilities including handmade garden furniture, countless jewellery shops, three or four well stocked antique shops, a flea market (entry 50p) in the Methodist Hall, another (entry free) in St. John the Baptist's parish hall which stretched over four rooms

In all we spent over three hours walking up and down the hilly main street of Burford and were left with the impression that it was a fascinating place for visitors, but must be very frustrating to live in. Of the fifty or so shops on the main street there was only one butcher and one newsagent that would be of regular use to the locals.

Having dined in (rather frugally given the lateness of the hour) yesterday, this evening we were determined to branch out and seek the famous "posh nosh" location in Shipton - the Lamb Inn. Tucked away around the corner of the road leading to Digger's Wood (I kid you not), at first this looked no different from any other country pub of the area. Low beams, low lighting, very clean and quiet, the first difference we discovered was the guest ale - a wonderfully clear dark pint with a hint of blackcurrant behind its hoppiness. But the best was yet to come. The meal!

Soup for me - carrot and orange - in a deep bellied bowl, probably enough for two people and fabulously orangey, with a deep carrot colour the consistency of thick cream. Wonderful. Nikki started with a tart tartin, on a bed of caramelised onion with a wedge of goat's cheese on top. Her main was a stuffed and honey-glazed breast of chicken with salad, while I tucked in to a fillet of beef and wild mushroom stroganoff. Now I've eaten beef stroganoff many times over the years, but this was a universe away from anything I'd experienced before. The sauce was so heavily laden with paprika as to be veritably a-glow with redness, and yet had a rounded flavour without a hint of bitterness. There were two - possibly three - different wild mushrooms in the sauce, each with a distinct flavour that crept up on you halfway through a mouthful. The sauce was thickened with slivers of red onion that imparted a delicious sweetness to the mix and this sweetness was occasionally and temporarily heightened when an unexpected sultana burst between your teeth in a wave of fruity goodness that was almost akin to an orgasm. OK, that's enough to secure my place in Pseud's Corner, but you get the picture. If you're ever in the vicinity do not pass the Lamb Inn by without stopping for a bite to eat. The place is an undiscovered gourmet paradise.

Dessert course, which we should have declined on account of being stuffed, we both couldn't resist once our eyes lit upon the first entry: Ginger Brulee. The ginger part did not disappoint - the whole dessert was crammed with it - but the brulee part was closer to a mousse with a nod in the direction of its title in the shape of a caramelised sugar topping. It was served on a circle of the thinnest meringue I've ever seen under which sat a thin bed of chopped pineapple which added another dimension to the flavour and prevented the mousse being to cloying. Perfect - the only trouble being that we could hardly stand by the time we'd finished.